Spanish-language KDTV celebrates top rating for 6 p.m. newscast

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, December 1, 2007

KDTV01_099_LH.JPG Weekday anchor Maria Leticia Gomez (left) and weekend anchor Catalina Garcia (right) during the 6pm news for the local Spanish-language newscast KDTV, who beat the English-language news stations here in the SF Bay Area for the first time at 6 p.m. among the 25-54 demographic. Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle/San Francisco/12/1/07
** Maria Leticia Gomez, Catalina Garcia cq
Ran on: 12-01-2007
Anchors Maria Leticia Gomez (left) and Catalina Garcia at KDTV; the 6 p.m. newscast was highest rated for viewers 25-54.
Ran on: 12-01-2007
Anchors Maria Leticia Gomez (left) and Catalina Garcia at work during the 6 p.m. broadcast at station KDTV. less

KDTV01_099_LH.JPG Weekday anchor Maria Leticia Gomez (left) and weekend anchor Catalina Garcia (right) during the 6pm news for the local Spanish-language newscast KDTV, who beat the English-language news ... more

Photo: Liz Hafalia

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KDTV01_014_LH.JPG Producer Juan Carlos Guerrero in the newsroom of the local Spanish-language newscast KDTV, who beat the English-language news stations here in the SF Bay Area for the first time at 6 p.m. among the 25-54 demographic. Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle/San Francisco/12/1/07
**Juan Carlos Guerrero cq �2007, San Francisco Chronicle/ Liz Hafalia
MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE. NO SALES- MAGS OUT. less

KDTV01_014_LH.JPG Producer Juan Carlos Guerrero in the newsroom of the local Spanish-language newscast KDTV, who beat the English-language news stations here in the SF Bay Area for the first time at 6 p.m. ... more

Photo: Liz Hafalia

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Weekday anchor Maria Leticia Gomez during the 6pm news for the local Spanish-language newscast KDTV, who beat the English-language news stations here in the SF Bay Area for the first time at 6 p.m. among the 25-54 demographic. Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle/San Francisco/12/1/07
** Maria Leticia Gomez cq less

Weekday anchor Maria Leticia Gomez during the 6pm news for the local Spanish-language newscast KDTV, who beat the English-language news stations here in the SF Bay Area for the first time at 6 p.m. among the ... more

Photo: Liz Hafalia

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New ratings leader. Chronicle Graphic

New ratings leader. Chronicle Graphic

Spanish-language KDTV celebrates top rating for 6 p.m. newscast

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Employees celebrated by eating tres leches cake at KDTV, a Spanish-language news station in San Francisco. For the first time, the station's 6 p.m. newscast was the Bay Area's highest rated - including those on English-language stations - among 25- to 54-year-olds during November, a key ratings period for advertising sales.

Such parsing of the Nielsen ratings is a time-honored practice among local TV news directors and their publicists. They're looking to tease out some good demographic news to convince the advertising community that they are the best buy in the market.

The reason for celebrating this rating news is no different - but the ascendancy of KDTV's newscast tells two stories, one in English, one in Spanish, of an evolving media landscape.

While the audience for English-language news - both TV and print - has scattered to online news sites and blogs, ethnic news outlets, particularly Spanish ones, are a growth area. KDTV's ratings are another sign that the Bay Area's Spanish-language market continues to grow and mature.

Spanish-language newscasts have topped English-speaking competitors in Miami and Los Angeles in the past, and KDTV has won slices of the 18-to-34 demographic before in the Bay Area. "But that 25-to-54 'demo,' that's what advertisers are looking for," said Melanie Wellbeloved, marketing and research director for Noticias Univision 14 (Univision 14 News).

The reason: That demographic slice covers those hip enough to thirst for new products, old enough to have the cash to purchase them, but not too old to be on a fixed income. "That is where the spending power is concentrated," said Sergio Bendixen, a Florida-based expert on Hispanic public opinion polling and media trends.

"When I first started talking about this (growing Latino market trend) in the '80s, people would say, 'Aw, that will be over in five years.' Well, it's still happening," Bendixen said.

"The significance of this is that it is 25 to 54 - we haven't seen too much of that," said Roxane Garzon, broadcast media director for Casanova Pendrill, which buys time on Spanish-language TV for corporate clients such as General Mills, L'Oreal and Kohl's.

"It will definitely get advertisers who weren't already looking to take another look," Garzon said.

But she points out that many corporations still don't recognize the power of the Spanish-speaking market.

Univision does not accept English-language advertising. So unless an advertiser already has a Spanish-language version of a commercial ready or can easily redub the English version, "it is usually too expensive" to make another one, Garzon said. "So a company might say, 'Well, I'm not going to advertise on you, then.' "

The root of this desire for Spanish-language TV news: Only 23 percent of Latino immigrants say they are able to speak English well, according to a survey released this week by the Pew Hispanic Center. But 88 percent of their U.S.-born children report that they are able to speak English very well, according to the survey.

In the Bay Area, Spanish is predominantly spoken in 9 percent of the households, according to Doug Danfield, Nielsen Media Research director of multicultural measurement.

That audience, several analysts said, is more comfortable hearing the news in Spanish and wants to hear news from its home country, which rarely gets airtime on local TV outlets but is a staple of Spanish-language news broadcasts.

KDTV's ascendancy also goes against the audience erosion affecting many sectors of mainstream media. Some Bay Area local TV stations have experienced a slight decline in ratings over a year ago, while others have held firm.

Over the past year, several stations have beefed up their online news sites in an effort to adapt to the changing way consumers get their news. Dan Rosenheim, vice president for news for CBS 5-TV, said, "We'd like to think of ourselves as being platform agnostic."

"There are a lot of different places to get news now, but this (TV news) remains a very, very profitable business," Rosenheim said.

Audience exodus to online sources hasn't happened as much in the Spanish-speaking market "mostly because of socioeconomic factors," Bendixen said. "Many of the people who immigrated here came without much education."

KTVU News Director Ed Chapuis cautions not to make too much of one slice of the ratings pie, considering that the TV news picture in the Bay Area is complicated, with different stations dominating different time slots and demographics. His station's newscasts, for example, continue to dominate the early morning hours.

"It is difficult to compare, because there are five different ways to divide the (English-speaking TV news) audience, but there aren't that many to divide the Spanish-speaking audience," Chapuis said. Univision-connected stations such as KDTV tend to dominate 70 to 80 percent of the Spanish-language market in many parts of the country.

Nevertheless, KTVU is planning to try to tap into the Spanish-speaking market by unveiling some new programming - not necessarily of the news variety - in the next few weeks, said Chapuis, who declined to be more specific.

It's another sign that the English-language local television market is taking its Spanish-language competition seriously.

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